Pass the miso soup and have some soy sauce drenched sushi for dinner.
Regularly eating fermented soy products is linked to a lower risk of early death, says a new study.
Researchers in Japan analysed the eating habits and health outcomes of more than 90,000 people aged between 45 and 74.
While they didn’t find a significant association between consuming soy products in general and early death from any cause, they did find that a higher intake of fermented soy products was associated with a lower risk of mortality.
So we’re not talking about your average soya milk. Instead the researchers are promoting the benefits of eating soy that has gone through a lengthy fermentation process that’s claimed to make it easier to digest.
This includes products such as natto (which sadly isn’t a common option in the UK, so you’d have to make this yourself), tempeh (which is starting to become more common), and miso, the fermented soybean paste with a salty, buttery texture – you’ll often find this in miso soup.
These are all vegan sources of healthy proteins.
Those who consumed the most fermented soy products were less likely to die from any cause, the researchers found.
Men who consumed at least 50.2g and women who consumed at least 46.6g per day of fermented soy were around 10% less likely to die in the 14.8 years of follow up, compared with those who ate the smallest quantity.
FYI, your average box of tempeh in the UK is 200g in weight, so you wouldn’t need to be having a pack a day to match those mega soy eaters – if you had a block of tempeh a week you’d be getting close to their average.
Eating at least 26.2g per day of natto was linked to a 24% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease in men and a 21% lower risk in women.
The results persisted even after further adjusting for intake of vegetables, which was higher among those consuming larger portions of natto.
Fermented soy products are richer in fibre, potassium and bioactive components than their non-fermented counterparts, which may help explain the link.
Of course, it’s worth noting that a load of other factors may be coming into play, so don’t rush out to radically change your diet to a soy-focused routine. Perhaps those who eat lots of fermented soy are also more likely to exercise, or less likely to have a load of red meat. Unmeasured factors may have played a part in the study, so researchers can’t establish cause and effect.
It’s also important to consider the environmental impact of your diet.
While it’s widely agreed that ditching animal products tends to be better for the environment and reducing carbon emissions, experts recommend that we replace meat and other forms of protein with crop-based products, such as lentils and chickpeas, rather than products using soy, the production of which often includes large-scale deforestation.
Lentils and chickpeas aren’t grown in the UK, however, so there’s the impact of flying them over to consider, too.
The truth is that at the moment, most of the world’s soya continues to be fed to livestock, with the majority of yield dedicated to the meat industry. That means that eating soy products continues to be better for the environment than eating animal products.
For now, there’s simply not a wide enough range of fermented soy products available in the UK to be picky with the growing practices of the manufacturer.
What you can do if you’re concerned about soy’s impact on the environment, however, is support certification schemes that demand producers of soy items refuse to grow soy beans on deforested land. The RTRS commitment is a good place to start.
In the meantime, you can up your consumption of tempeh and miso by throwing fermented soy into your meal plan once a week.
Oh, and drink green tea while you’re at it – that’s been linked to a longer life, too.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/30/eating-fermented-soy-products-miso-soup-tempeh-linked-lower-risk-early-death-12149986/
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